War in Libya - the Guardian briefing

War in Libya - the Guardian briefing

In the three years since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled by Libyan rebels and Nato airstrikes, fighting between militia has plunged the country into civil war and seen Tripoli fall to Islamists. The involvement of Qatar, Egypt and the UAE risks a wider regional war

A tank belonging to the pro-government Libya Shield forces fires during a clash with rival militias west of Tripoli. Photograph: Reuters

What’s the story?

Libya is in a state of civil war, with rival militias battling for control of different parts of the country. An alliance of Islamist militias and their allies from Misrata, Libyan Dawn, took control of the capital, Tripoli, in late August after seizing the airport from its nationalist defenders. That day, they were hit by airstrikes launched by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Libya now has two governments, one in Tripoli and one in the east of the country, both battling for the hearts and minds of the myriad militias.

How did this happen?

Libya’s militias have been skirmishing with each other ever since they liberated the country from Muammar Gaddafi with the help of Nato airstrikes in 2011. But it evolved into a struggle between Islamists and nationalists, tipping into full-scale war in June when the Islamists suffered heavy defeats in parliamentary elections.

Rather than accept the result, Islamist leaders accused the new parliament of being dominated by supporters of the former dictator, declared it unconstitutional and battled the nationalist militia holding Tripoli for control of the capital in fighting that saw districts devastated by thousands of rockets and artillery shells.

The capture of Tripoli by the Qatar-backed Libyan Dawn (after which it convened an Islamist-led rival parliament) saw Egypt-UAE airstrikes triggering fears the conflict would spill into a wider regional war. There are few regular forces for the government to call on, with the prime minister, Abdullah al Thinni, needing to persuade nationalist and tribal militias to try to recapture the capital. Libya’s government has called for foreign arms to help it defeat the breakaway regime, which foreign minister Mohamed Abdel Aziz said was “now stronger than the government itself”.

The issues

The risk of a wider war Libya’s war is partly a proxy struggle between Qatar and UAE, two Gulf states. While Qatar hosts Ali Salabi, Libya’s most influencial Islamist, UAE is the base for Mahmoud Jibril, its leading nationalist politician. Both Gulf states, locked in a four-way rivalry with Iran and Saudi Arabia, have pumped military aid and cash to their favoured Libyan militias, but the air strikes were the first sign of military intervention. Diplomats worry it may trigger counter-intervention by Qatar, an ally of the Islamists.

Is Libyan Dawn comparable to Isis? Libyan Dawn says not, insisting they are dedicated to ensuring the original aims of the revolution, with a country run by “revolutionaries” rather than politicians. They accuse the elected parliament, and the west, of being closet Gaddafi supporters. Their record since surging into the capital is to have torched the international airport (already wrecked from five weeks of fighting) and burnt 200 homes, including that of the prime minister, and wrecked government ministries. Gangs of militiamen are sweeping the streets kidnapping those with surnames from pro-government tribes. Their self-proclaimed “prime minister” is a former Islamist guerrilla fighter and the militias seem determined to meet any opposition with force.

The potential breakup of Libya Libya is a recent construction, cemented into a single state by Italian occupiers in the 1930s. Tensions between the regions of Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east and Fezzan to the south are ever-present. To those is added Tripoli now being under the control of Libyan Dawn, with the newly elected government decamping to the city of Tobruk in Cyrenaica. Some in Cyrenaica think separation is the answer, noting that the region contains two-thirds of the oil of Libya, which holds the largest reserves in Africa. The government itself is determined to reconnect with the rest of the country, but it lacks the armed forces to take back Tripoli, making de-facto partition the present reality.

Western military intervention is unlikely Three years ago, Nato military intervention in Libya was easy. Gaddafi was bombarding civilians, and air strikes to push the rebel forces to victory were straightforward. Now those same rebels are fighting each other it is more complicated. Libya’s conflict is growing ever more savage and civilian casualties are mounting. Formally, Nato still has the power to intervene to protect under the UN security council resolution of three years ago, but there is extreme reluctance to get involved. Both the Pentagon and UK Ministry of Defence believe “peacekeeping” is a misnomer because any troop deployment will inevitably end in fighting. With war raging across the Middle East, western politicians are equally reluctant to intervene.

What could change the equation is if the situation worsens and regional powers decide to a greater extent to take matters into their own hands, fuelling a wider war. For this reason, the US and European powers are seeking ways of backing Libya’s elected government with limited military aid, while trying to persuade the Islamists to reconnect with democracy.

Is the Arab Spring dead? Three years ago pro-democracy revolutions swept Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Since then the UN estimates nearly 200,000 people have been killed in Syria, Yemen’s reforms have stalled, Egypt is back under quasi-military rule and civil war rages in Libya. Only Tunisia has produced a functioning parliamentary system. This grim reality has seen some write off the Arab Spring as followed by an inevitable Arab Winter. Others - the optimists - say the bloodshed is part of the growing pains of populations wanting freedom pushing back against the old order. Libya’s own future is in the balance, with a democratically elected parliament at one end of the country and Libyan Dawn controlling Tripoli at the other. Having failed to win the hearts and minds of Libya’s voters, the country’s Islamists appear to have decided to take power the hard way, setting up a struggle that will define whether Libya’s democratic dream gets into orbit or comes crashing back to Earth.

Smoke over Tripoli after fighting between Libyan Dawn and rival militia in August 2014. Photograph: STR/EPA

How can I find out more?

Sandstorm - Libya from Gaddafi to Revolution by Lindsey Hilsum (Faber and Faber, February 2013) is one of the best accounts of the 2011 revolution, by Channel Four’s senior correspondent. Seeking Gaddafi by Daniel Kawczynski (Dialogue, February 2010) is readable account of Gaddafi by present chair of the UK parliament’s Libya Group, with strong detail on the killing of Yvonne Fletcher and Lockerbie. Writing the book saw him refused entry to Libya in the final years before Gaddafi’s fall.

Mohammed Eljarh - a Libyan analyst for US magazine Foreign Policy/Transitions and fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre - writes frequently on Libya, while the April 2012 IMF report on Libya is more readable than one might expect and is the one report that looks at the structural problems - half the population under 30, an oil sector ever more unable to provide employment and lack of a private economy - that it could be argued are the root cause of the conflict between Islamists and nationalists in Libya.